Smith in, Scholz out as Canada meets rugby Barbarians

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Ryan Smith will start Friday for Canada's rugby team in place of Mike Scholz, who is sidelined with a shoulder injury. ((Mark Thompson/Getty Images))

Canada has promoted veteran centre Ryan Smith to the starting lineup for Friday's match against the Australian Barbarians in Gold Coast, Australia.

Smith was named Wednesday to replace Mike Scholz, who has a minor shoulder injury, in the only change to the Canada lineup that downed the United States 27-7 on Aug. 13.

A week earlier, Canada beat the U.S. 28-22.

Canada's coach, New Zealander Kieran Crowley, said his team would use the warm up match at Gold Coast to gauge its performance ahead of the upcoming World Cup.

"It's not a test match, but it's pretty close," he said. "It's going to be a really good measure for us.

"A good result will be if the stuff we trained on shows in the game and if we're able to construct some chances."

The match will mark the 40th caps for captain Pat Riordan and Australian-born fullback James Pritchard.

Canada beat the U.S. in a 2009 playoff to qualify for the Rugby World Cup starting Sept. 9 in New Zealand. Canada has contested every World Cup since the fist edition in 1987, with its best performance coming in 1991 when it reached the quarter-finals.

"Our focus is we have to play the ball more," Crowley said. "We have to get more possession.

"We averaged 36 per cent over the two games against the U.S. and you can't go into the World Cup with that sort of possession."

The Barbarians made three changes to their lineup with fullback Mark Gerrard, Wallabies veteran Matt Giteau and prop Ben Daley all unavailable. Their places were taken by Bernard Foley, Ben Lucas and Greg Holmes respectively.